The present invention relates to a disposable wearing article for absorption and containment of bodily waste.
Conventional disposable wearing articles comprising front and rear waist regions opposed to each other and a crotch region extending between these waist regions. The article includes a plurality of waist elastic elements attached to a longitudinally opposite ends thereof in a contractible manner and a plurality of leg elastic elements attached to transversely opposite sides of the crotch region in a contractible manner. One of such articles is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 1995-289586 (hereinafter referred to as “Reference 1”). The front and rear waist regions are overlapped with each other along the transversely opposite sides of the waist regions and these transversely opposite sides are permanently bonded together at a plurality of heat-sealing lines arranged intermittently along the respective transversely opposite sides of these waist regions. Thus, this article is of pants-type or pull-on type having a waist-hole and a pair of leg-holes.
The waist elastic elements are sandwiched between top-and backsheets of the article and bonded to these sheets. The leg elastic elements comprise first elastic elements extending from the side of the front waist region into the crotch region so as to be convex toward a middle zone of the crotch region and second elastic elements extending from the side of the rear waist region into the crotch region so as to be convex toward the middle zone of the crotch region. The first elastic elements comprise transversely opposite lateral segments and intermediate segments extending between these lateral segments across the middle zone of the crotch region. The second elastic elements comprise transversely opposite lateral segments and intermediate segments extending between these lateral segments across the middle zone of the crotch region. The lateral segments of the first and second elastic elements are sandwiched between the top- and backsheets and permanently bonded to these sheets. The intermediate segments of the first and second elastic elements intersect with each other and are sandwiched between the backsheet and the core to be bonded to them. Both the waist elastic elements and the leg elastic elements are stretched at a predetermined ratio for bonding of these elastic elements and relaxed after bonding has been completed.
In the case of the wearing article disclosed in Reference 1, the respective lateral segments of the first elastic elements constituting the leg elastic elements extend in parallel to a longitudinal center line. With a problemsome consequence, even if contractile force of the lateral segments of the first elastic elements may cause the core to contract in the longitudinal direction, such contractile force can not function to press the core against the wearer's skin. In other words, contractile force of the lateral segments of the first elastic elements can not be utilized to maintain the core extending over the front waist region as well as the crotch region in close contact with the wearer's skin. If the core is spaced from the wearer's skin during use of the article, urea discharged on the article may be insufficiently absorbed by the core and leak of urine may occur. In addition, the respective intermediate segments of the first and second leg elastic elements extend across the core which extends in the crotch region and contractile force of these intermediate segments may possibly cause the core to contract in the transverse direction. Consequentially, the core may be formed with a plurality of irregular gathers tending to deteriorate a liquid absorbing function of the core in the crotch region and these gathers may make effective absorption and containment of bodily waste insufficient in the crotch region.